(no subject)

[wolffyluna]

So, at my riding school, us people doing the lessons rarely know the backstories of the horses we ride. Occasionally, an instructor will drop a tidbit of some if it's instructive or as a fun anecdote, but for most horses they don't seem to have any backstory? And when they do, it's often only one sentence (eg "She was a five year old's pony, and after the kid outgrew her, she got sold to us." (Which as a story ranges from 'huh, neat! to 'are you sure that horse wasn't part of some diabolical life insurance scheme, because who would put a five year old on that horse?' depending on the horse.)) Some horses have A Story (eg Woody's Weird Tragic Trail Accident.)

Brandy is the only horse I know of to have Two Stories.

For context, Brandy is a big ol' ex race horse who is built like a barrel on stilts. He is surprisingly tall and surprisingly round. He was also a slug in a past life, who is none to pleased be reincarnated as a horse. He does not have a hot (read: "flighty, fast, excitable") bone in his body. He is slow and plodding and needs to be constantly reminded that you want him to go at a speed faster than 0.5 km/h.

He has some good qualities, of course. He is good at teaching you how to get slow, plodding horses to go at any appreciable speed. If you are unbalanced, he will try and catch you-- in a really obvious way that makes it easy to spot that you are unbalanced. And he is great to have your first jump on; he'll smoothly pop over anything, and he's hard to put off.

And he, of course, has Two Stories.

1. He is a racehorse from Japan. How did he end up in Australia? Who knows! Ah, but presumably he was sold because he was a terrible race horse? No. I can not fathom how, but somehow, he won significant prize money when he was young? Like, six figures? He was actually pretty successful. (Still no clue how he ended up in Aus.)

2. My riding school has the 'school' side of the business, and the 'competitve showjumping' side of the business. Now, the owner was in the market for some new showjumpers, so he'd brought a bunch of prospective horses over to his property to see what they were like. Brandy was one of them. Even back then, he was a slug. An obvious one. He was in the running, but he wasn't first pick, you know? 'Slug-like' is not necessarily a favourable adjective. But the owner wasn't buying racehorses or barrel horses or whatever. He wanted jumpers. Speed wasn't the main thing he was interested in, ability to jump was. So he tested their jumping ability.

He set up a jump at about chest high. Any jumper "should" be able to get over that at a canter. I put "should" in air quotes, because jumping has a lot of "shoulds" that don't super match up to reality. For example, all horses' canter strides "should" be a certain length. It is rare for a horses natural stride length to be that. There are some other weird shoulds

Now, all the other prospective horses couldn't make it. Some came so close, but their feet knocked it at the last second, and they were out of the running.

But not Brandy. Brandy plodded over ("Wolffy, can horses really 'plod' at a canter?" Yes. Brandy could and can plod at a canter,) did a full on Elle Woods "What, like it's hard?", popped over the jump with barely any effort, and plodded merrily away.

And the owner went. "--Well, I guess I'm buying him."

Comments

[chocochipbiscuit]

I love this slug-horse on principle now. Disinterested slacker with great potential is a Mood.

[wolffyluna]

He is a lovely horse, if frustrating at times. And also deeply relatable at times. Plus, he's found his niche: riding a disinterested slacker that knows what they're doing is very educational. He does good work, being exactly that.

(Also, he's an utter sweetie pie. He cares about whoever is riding him, even if he doesn't recognise you? And he tries to catch you if you're off balance, which is sometimes off putting, but mostly very sweet?

[lb_lee]

I figure, he did his racing for a bit and decided he was DONE. And then he raced no more and became a happy plodhorse.

--Mori

[wolffyluna]

That's quite possible! Most of the ex-racers I've met have had some love of speed, but there's always an exception :P. (And even then, most of them have become ploddier in their old age. Maybe Brandy's just an old soul at heart.)

[empresszo]

<3